Aftermath
by ElvenSister
Summary: Short written in the aftermath of controlling the Reaper threat. Shekarian love story.


The new Turian capitol on Palaven

"Primarch, Ambassador Tali'Zorah Vas Normandy is on vidcom."

"Tali?" the Primarch said in surprise. The crew of the Normandy had each eventually gone their separate ways. There was, after all, a lot of clean up to do. It had been months since he'd heard from any but Wrex, and that was to discuss the standing terms of the Krogan/Turian alliance.

Garrus stood from his desk and handed his assistant the datapad with his notes on the latest changes to the newly rewritten council of planets charter.

He twitched a mandible in what passed for a Turian frown. Part of him didn't want to talk with Tali at all. It had been too hard to let go with the old crew around, and he liked having the illusion that he'd let go.

"I'll take it in here," he answered his assistant's unspoken question then waited for the man to leave. He walked over to the comm console and stared at the blinking indicator light for a longer moment than was probably polite.

When he finally worked up his courage, he pressed it to reveal Tail's suited form in the holo. "Garrus," she said with the obvious smile in her voice. "I wasn't sure you were going to take my call."

Suddenly ashamed, Garrus looked away from his old friend before saying, "I'm sorry, Tali. It's not easy for me."

Tilting her head, she replied softly, "It isn't easy for anyone. I understand, Garrus."

He grunted. "Do you? I'm not sure I do."

Tali let him wallow in that thought for a bit before changing tactics. "You've never asked me what I've been doing lately."

Garrus shifted his gaze. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, Tali. It's just the reminders of her…." His voice broke a bit in the end as it always did when he referred to Shepherd.

"I've been on an expedition to the Citadel. It's almost a total loss, but the data is still mostly intact."

A lancing pain cut through his gut at the mention of the Citadel, of where she died. He rumbled a sound in the back of his throat that mimicked the one he made when he took a good hit in the sparring ring.

"Interesting."

"It is, especially after…. Perhaps this was a mistake." Tali sounded nervous, anxious, uncertain.

"Spit it out, Tali. You clearly found something. What is it?"

He didn't mean to sound angry. He was angry, but not at her. It wasn't like Tali was the one who left him behind to go off and die in one final glorious battle alone, all alone where he couldn't help her, where he couldn't hold her in the end.

And, damn it, he thought, there it was again. He blamed Shepherd when it wasn't her fault either. She'd made the right call exactly as he'd have made it if their positions were reversed.

"I… well… I should probably just show you. Brace yourself, Garrus."

He began to ask what he should prepare for as Tali used her Omni tool to relay a message to his and suddenly she was there.

His heartbeat quickened painfully in response to her face. It had been so long since he'd seen it, months that felt more like years. Rich, dark human hair twisted high in a bun on her head and the graceful arch of her neck as the image of her face took up the holo.

"Tali'Zorah Vas Normandy. If you've found this, and I pray that you have, I'm losing the thread. Gotta make this quick, Tali. It was the only way to avoid more death."

Her face screwed up like she would cry as if the message took great effort, and Garrus reached out for the console to steady himself with something close to a whimper of his own. "Tell him it was the only way, Tali. Please. It's hard to explain, but there was a higher intelligence, after all, an AI called the Catalyst."

She looked off into the distance. "It looks as though I've supplanted him in the Reaper Core and taken over the fleet which was what he promised would happen. But, every day I become more machine than myself. I… I needed to tell you… tell you all."

His whole body thrummed with pain that burned soul-deep if he had such a thing. Garrus closed his eyes at the obvious pain on her face.

"Tali, if you deciphered the data pack you found messages for the crew and yourself. The Reapers are mine to use, and I intend to use them to rebuild. Tell the Council and the Alliance. I will miss you, my friend. I will miss all of you."

Tali's image replaced Shepherd's.

"I'm sorry, Garrus."

He choked on a blind kind of rage like he hadn't experienced since his days as Archangel. "Dead and not dead. That's pleasant." A datapad lay where he'd left it earlier on the console. He picked it up and flung it hard at the wall of his comm room where it shattered into a million tiny shards.

A protracted silence followed his uncharacteristic display. "I apologize, Tali. I should go." Even as he said the phrase, he choked on it and very nearly howled with the pain of it.

"I've attached her message to you, Garrus." There was sympathy in Tali's voice. "Kheelah'Selai."

Hitting the comm on his Omni tool, he informed his assistant to cancel his appointments. He was going home. The rebuilding of Palaven would have to wait a day. Garrus turned and downloaded the data pack watching the orange glow of the device with a type of wordless dread.

Once the transport landed outside his apartment, he strolled inside as if a pack of varren was chasing him. He poured a drink and uploaded the data pack to his vidscreen.

The image on the screen was sharper than the holo had been. A holo was a pale imitation of the woman. The vidscreen was better, he thought as he stared at the still image of Shepherd in death as it were.

Spirits knew that he'd never looked twice at any human over the years, not until her. Turian women were all sharp angles and leashed force, and that was what he had come to believe he liked.

He'd gotten to know this tiny bundle of energy and violence on the battlefield and, even then, hadn't known what was happening between them until she told him. He smiled and looked into his whiskey glass. "You always were telling me what to do, Shepherd."

He could almost hear her flippant answer in the air, "Don't pretend you didn't like it." He admitted he had. He didn't like this part though. The Loss. Big L.

He'd survived when she hadn't. It ate at him.

Of course, Shepherd would just tell him to stop whining and get his ass to work. Somehow, he couldn't.

To his people, she was soft, smooth, odd, but he'd seen the strength that lurked beneath that. She was hard as Iridium underneath a vulnerable shell that looked as though it could break in two standing beneath a Reaper looking up defiantly. It was an image that was burned into his brain from Rannoch. Her, small and Human, facing down the massive Reaper as if she did it every day.

He looked over at the vidscreen again. "No sense putting it off, Vakarian." He reached over and hit play.

"Garrus, I… I don't know what to say now, except that I'm kind of hoping I'm not exactly me when this … whatever the hell this is… is over. I'm sorry I can't meet you at the bar later. I'm on watch, you know." Her eyes slid sideways the way they did when she was trying to hide her fear and her hurt, and it almost brought out that howl again. The anguish of it was stifling.

"I wanted all of it." His breath caught as he stepped close to the screen and met her direct gaze, the one she used when what she was saying was vital to a mission. He waited for her to continue.

"The beach, the peaceful retirement. Hell, Garrus, you even had me wanting the kids. Me. A mother," she said with a derisive laugh.

He lifted the hand holding his glass and pointed at her. "You'd have made a great mother." He swiped a hand across his chest where the pain burned brightest and took another deep breath as if forcing himself to remember to breathe.

"I just wanted you to understand what happened, Vakarian. I was dead either way. Whatever else happened, I wasn't coming back, but I'm so glad you weren't with me."

She shook her head at him in a familiar rebuke. "Stop," she said. "That's an order. The galaxy needs you, Garrus, the same way I needed you." She smiled and he came undone, hitting his knees hard enough to feel it. He continued to look up at the screen on the wall. He couldn't look away now if an Atlas descended on him from the sky.

She went on. "You have to go on and get over. As long as you're alive, we're in this together. It's still Shepherd and Vakarian, do you read?"

He grunted. "I read you, Shepherd."

"I don't know what you're doing, but this mission isn't over as long as one of us is breathing. I want you to rebuild your life, Garrus. I'll be helping you from here, all right? I'm going to help you rebuild Palaven, and then you're going to go live your life the way you were meant to. No fear. No regrets. Got it?"

He couldn't stop the howl then. He shouted his pain to the Spirits. He was made of regrets now. How could he give her what she wanted?

"I have to go now. Garrus Vakarian, you were the best thing in my life, and I love you. Always remember that."

Garrus sat there with her words for hours trying to give her what she needed one more time.


End file.
